On the Blog
by Mycroft-mione
Summary: For once, John was completely surprised. It hadn't occurred to him until just now that Sherlock might not know. (Prompt: stuffed dinosaur. Submitted to the 'One Prompt, Many Fandoms' Competition on HPFC.)


"I went on the blog today-" Sherlock announced, but before John could yell _aha!_ , the detective managed to frown down at him, despite sitting in an armchair five feet away. "Don't get excited. Your posts are still irrelevent drivel, but I'm engaged in a comment war with Mrs. Hudson on the discussion page and I _must_ win."

"Uh-huh." John was tired, he didn't even want to know what was going on. Sherlock was probably berating the landlady for not knowing about the mass of the 118th periodic element or something.

"But while I was there, I noticed something on the main page," he said, ignoring John's response.

Suddenly, the teacup felt ice cold in John's hand. "Mm-hmm?"

Sherlock frowned again. "Why did your voice just change? Your voice just changed." He narrowed his eyes, scanning John slowly. John felt his neck flush in response to his gaze.

"What are you talking about? Look, get on with it, I have work to do."

"Work? What work?"

"You know, that thing I do when I'm out of the flat?"

"Mmm. Unimportant."

John shook his head, even though he wasn't really exasperated. Most of their conversations revolved back to Sherlock being oblivious. It wasn't a surprise anymore how much his friend filtered ordinary conversations.

"Well? Tell me why."

"Tell me what you saw, and I'll tell you why I... reacted oddly."

"Then I shall deduce it myself, it won't take long. A day at most."

" _Look_ ," said John loudly, "even you can't work out emotions. You haven't got any. You don't know a thing about how I feel." The last few words slid off his tongue, then he suddenly heard himself - the cruel tone he had used, the brutal _honesty_. "I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." This whole conversation made his brain hurt, in the literal sense. He had the makings of a migraine.

"I don't care," Sherlock replied - carelessly - and stood up. But John couldn't believe that someone could throw off abuse with any sort of reaction. Usually, Sherlock had some kind of scathing reply at the ready. "You must."

"I don't." A pause. "I know what you were reacting to."

"Oh. Really?"

An elaborate, petulant sigh. "No, I just thought perhaps you'd tell me if I said so. You're not the most cunning; you'd like to get this over with."

That was true, but not how Sherlock said it. What had he seen on the blog? And why was he acting so odd about it? _I'm acting odd too_ , John thought, _but that's not the point_.

"Whatever. You know I'll work it out eventually. And I'm busy too, busy with a case."

"So?"

Another exaggerated sigh. That man was full of them. "...The dinosaur rubbish."

"What?"

For once, John was completely surprised. It hadn't occurred to him until just now that Sherlock might not know.

The way he spoke, it was like he was holding some secret knowledge over him, dangling it low enough for John to jump up and swipe, too high to latch onto. That's how Sherlock was; he was the tease in the pair of them.

But it turned out that the secret wasn't some glorious revelation, not really, not unless the revelation was completely _wrong_. It had to be a bluff. The dinosaur thing... That was ages ago, wasn't it? And it just didn't fit with anything they were saying, or what John was thinking, and he was just tired of everything being so confusing, and-

Sherlock was standing up finally. John had stood up sentences ago.

"You wrote a post called _The Stuffed Dinosaur_ , about a fluffy green toy with its insides filled with pasta left at an Italian place - a halfway decent pun, considering the idiocy of it. Only, it never happened."

"Um," John said. He couldn't respond. Thinking back to that post, he pulled out the truth. "Actually, it did, I think. Before I got here, years ago. Lestrade mentioned it one time, and I got the details from him at the pub that month. Only just got to typing it up the other day." John finished, then waited.

"I don't recall that case."

"Maybe you deleted it. From your mind palace."

"I don't delete case evidence."

"Well," John began carefully, "maybe you weren't yourself when you solved it." He lowered his voice. "Maybe you were preoccupied."

"I had finished the drugs by then, John."

"Not according to Mycroft." They stared at each other, each failing to bite back angry retorts.

"You had no right-!"

"To talk to your brother? You're my mate, of course I have!" _A bloody bit more than a mate, I wish_ , John thought to himself.

"I'm not interested in your strange newfound fascination with dinosaurs. You still haven't explained your reaction when I brought it up."

"You said you'd figure it out."

"Maybe I don't feel like figuring it out." Sherlock's eyes flashed.

"Ha, as if. No, you just don't know where to start... I don't want to deal with your bloody insecurities, I gave you a good enough answer, now drop it!"

John noticed that they had drawn closer together in the midst of their fighting. His fists were clenched, and he felt the urge to swing them at Sherlock's face, if it weren't for the knowledge that his blows would be defended - and the fact that John usually felt like throwing a punch his way, for some reason or another.

"You're saying your hand started twitching, and you winced, and you bit your lip - all because you wrote a blog about something I don't remember? An unrequested offering to the fan base?"

"Yes," he answered.

They kept looking at each other, both knowing that it was a lie.

 _No_ , John thought, trying to tell Sherlock this telepathically, because it was beyond him to say the full truth aloud. _You don't know the least of it._


End file.
